Philadelphia

"We are looking for a man. About 6'3", dark hair and carrying a camera. Did you see him? He cannot be far."
-
"I'm sorry officer, I have no idea."

Met

My photographic activity barometer was stuck at the zero mark last weekend, but I had some quality time with my friends.
The pictures beneath where taken at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in June this year. Since April they have a special exhibition of Greek and Roman sculptures. It was very quiet in there while outside right in front of the museum the Puerto Rican Day Parade was rioting...the whole world compressed to a little spot - also known as New York City.

Change Log

I just made two little changes in older postings. First of all I deleted the lens comparison I did earlier this year. After looking at more images, I'm quite sure that the comparison wasn't correct. Instead, it looks like the Tokina brings about the same results as the canon lens. The test was probably spoiled by people walking on the wooden floor of the church while I did an exposure.
The other change concerns a posting from last year where I showed a picture of Robin Williams as a comparison to someone I photographed who looks like him or even might be him. A while ago I read how expensive it can be to post a picture without having the copyrights. I simply took this picture out, just to be on the safe side.

Lytebox

I just started to experiment a bit with a javascript code called Lytebox. I saw how well it blends into Shape's blog and now I'm experimenting a bit. You can see it in action if your browser has javascript enabled. Just click on the image of my previous post or simply click here. The additional work to make an image appear like that is minimal, but there is one thing I'm not sure if I like it: It automatically scales the images down according to the browser window size and the image quality suffers from the downsampling. If I use it on a regular basis, I might upload a bit smaller images and take out the resizing code.

Cody's

june - sunday - afternoon - new york city.

Long Time Exposure

27.7 minutes.
I set the camera on bulb mode and laid down on the grass next to it. Fell asleep while looking at the stars, woke up by my own snoring, took the camera and went home without checking what I actually got.

FDR Skatepark

This skatepark has many websites. Here is a wikipedia link.

Window on Nassau Street

About a new lens and flying with balloons

I almost don't dare saying it, but I have to speak it out: I purchased a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM.
The lens is big, heavy and superb and I am happy and broke :-)
I got more and more tired of carrying a backpack with prime lenses and exchanging them all the time. I have this baby on my camera now and I won't need to take it off much. My freshly cleaned image sensor will be happy about not seeing so much dust anymore and after doing a number of comparison shoots, I can tell that this lens outperforms everything I have in that focal range. With it's maximum aperture of 2.8 all the way from 24mm to 70mm and it's macro focus range, it will basically open a new little world to me.
Look at these sentences, maybe I should start a career in advertising.
So I took it to this balloon fest last Saturday to see what it feels like to use it. The zooming-by-walking, or even worse, zooming-by-lens-exchanging times are over. Regarding the optical resolution and sharpness, I have this picture with two magnified cut-outs to show what it can do on my 20D.


So what about the hot air balloon ride? Well, it was just another highlight this weekend. The ride was actually not that long (about 20 minutes to half an hour), but I was still high hours later (anybody got that pun? Fantastic, right? :-)).
A couple of things came unexpected to me, though. For example that the pilot usually doesn't know exactly where the wind would bring us and no clue about where we would land - he didn't even know the area. So while up in the sky and trying to spot a good location for a landing, I was kind of surprised that something like this exists in this country. A place where people think going 65mph is going fast and you're used to be supervised by at least two live guards while trying to swim in a pool that is as high as your knees :)

Meteor Shower on Sunday Night

"Got a calendar? Circle this date: Sunday, August 12th. Next to the circle write "all night" and "Meteors!""
source: science.nasa.gov

A meteor shower...wow!
What do you need for photographing stars and meteors? A tripod, a lens with large focal length and darkness.
My longest lens is 85mm. This is not really best for that purpose, but I might give it a try. Something like this might be possible. Fortunately, we have new moon, which means that the sky is gonna be dark and meteors should come out bright.
One should also prefer a location with fresh and not humid air for a clear fiew, which points to the shore. Also important: The sky should be unpolluted from artificial light. Taking all this into account, a friend suggested to go to Island Beach State Park. He said it would be totally dark there. Not sure if I will have time to do that tomorrow, but maybe you. Take these hints, if you need, and show me what you got.

Quote

"I am a human being using a mechanical device to stop the world and explore it at my own speed."
Jason Hanasik

Still thrilled...

...by the tension of the previous image? This one will calm you down.

After the exhaustion of photographing the reflection of a fisherman in Central Park, I sit down and enjoyed a Croissant. This guy landed right in front and started yelling at me.

Danger Danger!

Not much of a wildlife-joe, but I liked this one. Especially how it sticks its head into the depth of field, which is real.

Next weekend here in the area

The Cranbury Digital Camera Club will hold a two day workshop called "all About The Light" with a variety of topics and speakers.
This runs in parallel to a hot air balloon festival. I picture this a photogenic event, and yes, I'm planning on attending a hot air balloon ride! :-D

Urban Fisherman

Date: July 2007
Location: Central Park, New York City

Somewhat Surreal

This was yesterday around midnight during (almost) full moon. Exposure time was about 10 minutes.
Post processing: I tuned the colors slightly, added some vignetting with a soft brush and gave it some lens blur - now it looks a bit like it came out of a toy camera.
Location: Golf course at the Princeton Graduate School.

Princeton

A fresh snow blanket would have been nice, but in that case the bike would most likely not be there.

Date: March 2007
Location: Princeton Campus